Nawal El Saadawi has been agitating for change in her home country for more than 50 years I caught up with her as she was heading out into the streets of Cairo -- right before President Mubarak stepped down.

While doing my daily browsing of Craigslist Egypt to find a sweet, ancient Egyptian couch and maybe even an Akhenaten era ping pong table that some grave robber is just going to throw to the curb anyway, I made this shocking discovery.

By all journalistic reports, it was the Egyptian government of President Hosni Mubarak that sent thousands of armed thugs into Tahrir Square and the streets of Cairo yesterday to bring violence to what had been a peaceful and nonviolent protest for democracy. Some think many of those who were attacking the protesters were police in plain clothes. Others are believed to have been hired and bused in to foment violence with machetes, clubs, and razors -- some riding in on horses and camels into the peaceful crowds. A call for peace now must mean a call for Mubarak's immediate resignation.

Like the Shah before him -- a man whose grave is in the heart of Cairo because he was refused burial in the nation of his birth -- Mubarak's speech indicated how out of touch he was with the reality of the people.